Maria Lloyd (00:08.064)
Okay, so hello Mark and welcome to the My Local Marketer podcast. Thank you for inviting me. No, well, thank you for inviting me. My first podcast, so be gentle. Is it? congratulations. I was going say maybe your first podcast, but it's my second time here now in Thames Lido. I can't believe I've not been here sooner. Well, what I'd want to congratulate you on first of all, you said Lido, not Lido.

I had a lot of practice on that because I said Tamslido quite a lot, but people kept coming to me to Lido and I was like, but there's no E. If you Google it and say how to pronounce Lido, it's L-E-E-D-O. So it's an Italian word. that's why. Yeah, we adopted it. Well, think we, Brits adopted it in the 1930s when outdoor bathing became a thing, post-war. yeah, and I think if you go to Venice, there's Lido in Venice and so on.

So yeah, we pronounce Lido, but I think the English over the years, and I was brought up in Woking in Surrey, and we used to go to the Guildford Lido. And the Guildford Lido was a typical English Lido, which was only open in the summer. It either smelled of chlorine or urinals, and mum and dad sitting on the side watching loads of children running around and being a nuisance. And we knew when we launched Bristol Lido that

we weren't a traditional kind of UK Lido. We were, I suppose, more of an adult playground. So a nice restaurant and a bar, a pool that wasn't loads of children bombing and diving and throwing inflatables around, and obviously the massage bar. So we've kept to the pronunciation Lido, which is, I think, the Italians would say it. I think that's appropriate, because you say something Italian, you think something quite...

special and unique. So I totally agree with you on that. So for our listeners who aren't familiar with who you are, could you just introduce yourself and well, just a basic intro to Thames Lido, because obviously we're going to talk more about the history of it in bit, aren't we? Well, Thames Lido was opened in 2016, 17, 17 years ago. And this building was derelict for 42 years. So it was an old ladies only swimming pool.

Maria Lloyd (02:25.966)
But the organization, we opened another Lido in Bristol 17 years ago in 2008 and found a model. It took us a few years. 2008, if you remember, was a terrible financial recession for all of us. So it took a while to find the recipe. And when we did find the recipe, suddenly it boomed and it grew and became very popular. And so we essentially were an outdoor swimming pool that's open all year.

with sauna, steam room, hot tub. Then we have here, we've got six massage rooms. We don't do beauty treatments. It's purely massage, only one hour based treatments, keeping it very, very simple. We ensure that in between each massage, there's 15 minutes, so no one ever feels rushed. So the Lido life is very much about taking time out. And then we have, hopefully you'll...

you have experienced a wonderful restaurant and bar as well. And we don't do jus and foams and all this kind of Michelin star style of food, much more local produce, seasonal, cooked really simply, kind of Mediterranean style influenced by maybe the Italian Nido.

It's delicious. I've eaten here before with RuPaul when we first came to record our last podcast. So thank you very much for letting us use the room. And you are the manager here, aren't you? I'm the management director of the company. I started off 17 years ago as the general manager of Bristol Lido. My background and experience is leisure and spa. Arnie, who's the owner, his background was running restaurants. So he needed someone to help him.

with the spa and the membership side of things. yeah, we were a strange mix because he's 20 years my senior, but he's Swedish and my mother's from Finland. So we have this kind of slightly Scandi approach to the way we do things. And obviously outdoor living is a big, big Scandinavian thing. So I remember when we first opened Bristol Lido, when I showed people around, it's changed a lot, but 17 years ago, people used to say, when did you put the roof on?

Maria Lloyd (04:40.398)
No, no, there is no roof. so when do you close in October? I said, no, no, we're open all year. And this is a whole thing about being with the elements and enjoying nature. I know I say nature, obviously we're surrounded, we're not on the riverside as such. We're fortunately not in the Thames, although it's next to us, we're not in the Thames. But this was actually filled by the River Thames initially. So I've met many people who came here as and with school trips swimming when it wasn't heated, it was river water.

And I think there was lots of frogs and fish and slimy bits in here. yeah, we decided maybe having clean, chlorinated, filtered water and heated more importantly was probably better business model for us. Although saying that, know, nowadays it's, so said, yeah, 17 years ago, the whole thought of swimming in the winter or swimming in England outdoors was a bit strange for people, but you know, people are now.

exercise classes outside throughout the winter, cycling, running, and wild swimming is massive. I think people are much more health conscious now. And I really like that you introduced that it used to be filled with water from the Thames, which leads nicely into talking about the history of it. Because I said it was 40 years ago functioning, wasn't it? It was the old boarding Yeah, I mean, was built in 1902 as a ladies only swimming baths. The old kind of mixed

Swim Pool was I think the Environment Agency building just across from here. That's where the mixed pool was. But this was ladies only. Built in 1902, filled by the River Thames. And it operated I think until about 1972 when it eventually closed. And it's a bit like most outdoor swimming pools in the UK.

digging a hole in the ground and putting water in it and trying to filter it and heat it and doesn't make money. In fact, it costs a lot of money and therefore this is the problem is councils can no longer subsidize them. And so that's why a lot of outdoor swimming pools or old Lido's have closed. And in fact, the lady who, one of the ladies who was looking after this swimming pool

Maria Lloyd (07:01.952)
in that 40 years, well not in the latter years. She actually had her own website called LostLeados and it was highlighting and her research was amazing trying to highlight to everyone how many outdoor swimming pools there were in the country that were derelict and needed support and help. And it was quite, we knew that Bristol Lido was very successful. Arnie, again being a bit older than me, was quite happy with just one Lido. I wanted to...

to delve into the world of Lidos and see if I could become involved at an investor level and a director level. So I was looking around to see, you know, was there another site? Because both of Lidos, I suppose I should mention, they're both great two star listed buildings. No, this is great two and Bristol's great two star. And that's part of the attraction is a restoration project. And so I found

this one by chance and there was a campaign group called Kings Meadow Campaign. They were looking after it on behalf of the council. were volunteers every weekend throughout the winter, throughout the summer, would open the doors here, show people around and try and raise awareness. I suppose trying to put a bit of pressure on the Reading Borough Council to invest and reopen the Lido, which they could, know, Reading Borough Council were very...

honest and said, look, we just haven't got the funds for the swimming pool. I mean, it wasn't, I mean, they got it listed, didn't they? It wasn't listed before, so it was at risk of being knocked down. think much to the despair of the borough council. think they would have loved to have, well, it was a thorn in their side. A derelict building on this field here. It wasn't a great thing. But anyway, the King's Meadow campaign group was wonderful. They had a website and

on the home page of their website, they actually had a picture of Bristol Lido and the caption underneath, don't quote me, but it was similar like, you know, please support us. You never know. This could be us one day. And and I spotted this and I sent a link to that to Arnie and said, look, I know you said you don't want to do another one of these, but this place looks pretty special. Reading. Well, first of all, it's very central. The building is probably better as a.

Maria Lloyd (09:26.99)
for what we want, the purpose we want it than the Bristol Lido because it's surrounded on all four sides by brick wall. It was built with privacy in mind because it was ladies only. So we got a real lovely blank canvas. It's a big, big site. The old swimming pool was 37 meters long, so it was a big swimming pool. And it really had an amazing, as it's kind of skeleton from us to work from. And the fact that it had been shut for 42 years.

We knew we probably had quite a good chance of the council listening to us and us coming in and restoring it, which they did. I mean, it costs, as you said before, costs quite lot to run something like Thames Lido. So what are the other challenges that you faced in opening and running it? Beast from the East. That was our first challenge. I don't know if you remember Beast from the East back in 2017, 2018 in February.

We had this Arctic storm coming over from Russia. So that was our first real challenge. was literally the first three months of that opening. Suddenly we had this horrendous snow and ice storm coming across all of the country. The heating. We had lots of burst pipes, put it this way. To be honest, the members we have prefer using the Lido during cold weather.

It's that contrast. again, my Scandinavian background and Arnie's, that's what it's all about. It's that contrast of temperature when you go from a warm sauna to the cold outside air or the cold tepid swimming pool. Your blood vessels, that circulation, that improvement circulation, that adrenaline. There's lots of studies about the benefit of wild swimming and I'm sure Vim Hoff.

would probably, although I think our pool's probably too warm for Wim Hof. think. Yeah, I think so. Unless it's covered with ice. fact, we'd only been open about six months and I was working here one Saturday and these three chaps came in and they booked for the day and they'd gone off on Got Change, came back to reception desk and one of them looked at me and so where's the cold pool? I said, sorry.

Maria Lloyd (11:47.64)
He said, yes, we're wild swimmers. don't want to swim in a heated pool. I said, we've just spent three years restoring it at a huge cost, and now you don't want to swim in it because it's too warm. And not jokingly, I said, well, there is the River Thames right behind us. they kind of half snickered and walked off and went to have a sauna. And the next thing I knew, about 15 minutes later, they were walking out the building, up the towpath and jumping into the River Thames.

So yeah, our pool is too warm for some people, but for others it's too cold as well. So normal swimming pools, indoor pools, are about 28-29 degrees Celsius and this is between 25 and 26. So it's meant to invigorate a little bit. That's amazing. Sorry, one second.

I realised I picked up the wrong questions.

yes, that was something I wanted to ask you about, your range of services. I know you said at the start you don't do beauty, but you do have a range of services. Is that in order to make sure you still got an income coming in? Because obviously you can't just have a poor. So have you found that they complement each other enough? Is that why you've chosen that range and it's just at that Well, absolutely, yeah. The commercial success of this, we often refer to it as a Swiss army knife. There's many different elements that all make.

make it work together. If you took away the swimming pool and the massage rooms and this was purely a restaurant, it wouldn't work. wouldn't, it's too big. wouldn't attract people with the location and so on. If you took away the restaurant and the massage rooms and just had a swimming pool, financially wouldn't work because you can only have a certain volume of people and so on. And exactly the same as bar. But so there are three main parts of this business. You've got the massages, you've got the swimming pool.

Maria Lloyd (13:40.448)
and the sauna and steam and you got the restaurant. And it took us a couple of years to discover this, but we're actually, could use the swimming pool and the massage and the restaurant together as an experience. And so people come here now to, we all have birthdays, we all have anniversaries, we all have special occasions we want to share, whether you're visiting your daughter at university in Reading. And it just so happens that people's birthdays fall on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So.

Where a lot of restaurants in most towns struggle during the week because people are working, people come to the Lido on days off on special days. so it's what we've developed is a, is an experience of relaxation of invigoration, bit of exercise, and then a bit of indulgence of, you know, good, good food and good drink and socializing. So, that's what makes the Lido work. The fact that it's a real.

escape for people. I'll tell you wonderful story that Arnie, we once hosted a meeting in Bristol for an organization called the Heritage Pools of Britain and this was a collection of people who were really keen on outdoor swimming pools, or indoors as well actually, and they'd all got together and created this organization to support each other, to talk about how do we

how do we maintain our swimming pools? How do we finance them? What can we learn from each other? And they asked us to host their second meeting and we did so. And they said to me, well, would you and Arnie do a little talk about your leados and your experiences? And I said, yeah, of course we'll. So I said to Arnie, look, because Thames was, I suppose, what I found and I've been involved from the start, why don't I talk about Thames' leader and

Bristol's Your Baby. I went first and very much my speech was, because I knew my audience, about 40 people there, were people who loved swimming pools. so my talk was very much about the Lido, the success of the Lido. If you look at it, everything looks onto the swimming pool. the bar, the massager, everything is centered about the pool and the pool is really the heartbeat of what the Lido as a business is.

Maria Lloyd (16:09.208)
Then Arnie stood up to talk about Bristol Leado and he kind of looked a bit embarrassed. He said, well, I'm really, you know, a bit embarrassed because actually the pool, I never got into this because of the swimming pool. You know, I'm a restaurateur. I operate restaurants. The swimming pool is purely there as a form of entertainment for my guests. And then he said, and the best thing about it is those people entertaining my guests pay me for the privilege. and I think...

Basically, what he was trying to get to was that if you want to make these swimming pools affordable and make them sustainable, it's going to be very, very difficult to do that by offering swimming only, because unless people are willing to spend £50 per swim or anything like that, and therefore by adding other revenue centres and building an experience, something that people would enjoy.

It has a chance. It's a wonderful idea because that is clearly, know, Tansedo, Bristol, that is your USP. You've got something that no other restaurant has, no other swimming pool has. And it's a unique experience. So people have to come to you if they want that experience. There are no other sort of local places to do that, but it must have taken you quite a while to get to realizing, okay, we can have massage, but no beauty. And these all compliment each other. So that was that the 17 years from

Bristol learning to get to that point? Yeah, took, the first two years in Bristol were really difficult. We opened with about 450 members. You could then, as a member of the general public, you can come in for £20 for a three hour swim, or you can go to the restaurant, or you can come in and have a massage. And it just wasn't working. And I think people didn't quite get it. And I don't think our marketing was quite right and we hadn't.

So I only, I remember, I remember the day he said to me, look, you know, we've been open two years now, the membership doesn't grow in people aren't, don't seem to be willing to pay 20 pounds for a three hour swim here. We need to do something. We need to attract, you know, have a more accessible, opportunity for people to come in. So I spoke to my assistant manager and I said to her, look, I remember years ago, I worked for this hotel and we used to,

Maria Lloyd (18:35.854)
use a gift voucher company to sell gift vouchers. And they used to do the, they probably still do the gift vouchers for the Ritz Hotel in London. And I remember them telling me some weird statistic was that in December only, the Ritz, and again, this has probably changed a lot since then, but the Ritz used to sell about half a million pound of gift vouchers for afternoon teas, just in the month of December. So I said to Lily, I said,

Maybe that's what we need to do. We need to build some kind of a package that's accessible, but gives people a bit of a treat, bit of a luxury, but affordable. So we came up with this thing called a swim in afternoon tea. So it was a two hour swim, saw on a steamer hot tub, followed by a glass of Prosecco, our own sourdough toast, because we used to make our own sourdough with smoked salmon, followed by scone, a cream tea, which obviously is a very...

popular thing for most people. And we charged £25 for it. And the way we priced that out was, well, look, we're just going to give the swim for free. We're not going to charge the swim. Let's make it accessible. And let's just make sure that, you know, we get good money for the food and drink that we're going to sell. And literally within a couple of weeks, that package where we'd never seen anything like it, suddenly left, right and centre, we were booked three months in advance. our limitation was that we...

We could only offer that at a certain time because afternoon tea is afternoon tea So I think it was a two o'clock swim in the four o'clock afternoon tea And then it suddenly dawned on me. I think hang on we serve breakfast. We serve lunch. We serve dinner Why don't we do the swim and for breakfast? That was the birth of swimming breakfast swim and lunch and swim and dine which is the core it's the most popular package we do and it's

I think is what we're very well known for. The Swim and Dine was an interesting one because one of the problems restaurants have is everybody wants a dine at the same time. Most people want to eat between seven and eight o'clock. we thought, hang on, what we could do with Swim and Dine, why don't we bookmark our service? So the Swim and Dine, we do two sittings, one early and one late. So one of them is six o'clock dinner and the other one is nine o'clock dinner. And then for you get your normal restaurant trade in between there, but your

Maria Lloyd (21:01.342)
special package either end and that was it. That was where the kind of light bulb moment came and everything followed on and then you know we were then the country started coming out of recession then outdoor swimming and you know we talked about the ice water bucket before we came on air. All that thing started coming and then suddenly people yeah so we're very lucky you know it's it's we're very lucky because we got the opportunity to restore these wonderful heritage buildings.

which is a big part of the appeal for lot of people. People love to see what we've done. So you've got this great two listed building with a modern twist, a bit of luxury, modern luxury. We make it accessible. So one of the things, and I feel a bit guilty for reading with this story, but it's quite an interesting one. So when we got the Bristol Swim Pool, that was originally called Clifton Baths. And Arnie, right at the beginning, said to me,

This is about, because I worked previous to the Lido's, I was a spa director in a five red star hotel in the New Forest. So I came in a suit and a badge and yes and no sir. And it was all about exclusivity and high price. And Arnie very quickly grounded me and said, by the way, the Lido's not about this. This is about an amazing opportunity to restore this facility and open up and make it as accessible as possible and give people the opportunity to.

to use the swimming pool again. Because the Bristol one had been closed 18 years. And I said, okay. I said, well, in that case, the Clifton Pool brand isn't going to work because Clifton is synonymous, you know, it's one of the most expensive places to live in Bristol. And it is linked to wealth and exclusivity. So I said, well, I think the branding of this facility is quite important. So Bristol is

quite a cool place to live, people like Bristol. they call it Baths. Baths is quite an old fashioned thing. Lido is quite vogue at the moment. So we came up with, OK, why don't we brand this swimming pool in this complex Bristol Lido? So essentially what we did, we downplayed it slightly so that we were accessible.

Maria Lloyd (23:19.694)
forward 15 years and we successfully convinced the Reading Borough Council to give us the lease for this venue. This was called King's Meadow Baths. I'm not sure many people even in Reading know what King's Meadow Baths are. We said, okay, we can't call it King's Meadow Baths. So the obvious thing was we're to call it Reading Lido. Yes. Now I do apologize, Reading. We kind of looked at each other quite nervously.

Reading hasn't quite got the same ring as Bristol. Kind of visions of David Brent suddenly appeared and it's, I've to be careful what I say really. But anyway, we felt that we needed to kind of lift the brand slightly. And again, one of these light bulb moments was well, the swimming pool here is a situated right on the banks of the River Thames, but more importantly was it used to be filled by the River Thames.

And the link, it's not a tenuous link, it's a genuine link. So why don't we call it Thames leader instead of Reading leader? Seven years later, I do feel a bit guilty. No, I think the name was a very good choice. And you're absolutely right. I Reading, even when I moved here like 20 years ago from university, Reading had this reputation, probably still does for many.

of being a commuter town. And like I said to you before we started to record until last year, I didn't really know Reading had so much, which is part of the reason why I want to start the podcast to highlight exactly what there is in Reading. Because there is a lot in Reading. So you're absolutely right. And I think Thames Ludo does have a really nice ring to it. So I was going to ask you actually, why Reading? What do you like about Reading now that you've been here a while? Have you found some quirks for Reading or some...

other characteristics? Well, why Reading? It's because there was an old swimming pool here that needed restoring. So Reading wasn't chosen because of Reading. Reading was chosen because of King's Meadow Baths and the amazing facility here. So that was the opportunity. When we first came to Reading, we were amazed how the lack of independent restaurants compared to Bristol. You go to Bristol, the

Maria Lloyd (25:33.548)
and not just restaurants, but independent shops, retailers, crafts. Reddings seem to be very, very corporate, a lot of chains.

quite sure why that happened. I suspect mainly because perhaps the rent's very high and it's very difficult for people to get units within Reading and grow that independence. So that was the negative side of what we first thought about Reading, but actually a negative, but for us it's very positive as an independent restaurant. It was an opportunity for us to, you know, maybe put independent venues on the map and help Reading.

which I think we've definitely done. But I think also the whole world of restaurant and hospitality, even in last seven years, I think people are keen to support independence and less keen to go to the big chains and see what individuals are doing. But I think what's amazing, none of us knew about reading at all.

And there was a slight nervousness of just because something works in Bristol, why is it going to work in Reading? Are the people of Berkshire slightly different? know, might outdoor swimming not be their thing? Do they prefer indoor pools with fluffy slippers and robes and so on? But what we found is, and I think you've probably found it as well, is that community feeling in Reading is probably...

across the whole of the UK. think the community is the important thing. it really became apparent in lockdown. lockdown came three years after we opened. we were just starting to find our feet. And then this horrendous thing happened to all of us. And so we obviously closed in lockdown. And I emailed all the members and said, look.

Maria Lloyd (27:37.878)
Obviously you're paying your monthly direct debit, if we're not open, it's not fair for us to continue taking your money. So we're going to close. We hope to open again and then we'll contact you and we can restart payments once we open. I was overwhelmed by the support of members and not just members, people who come in regularly, phone calls and emails.

I I was the voice at the time for both the Lido's because everyone else was on furlough. And I was getting emails and phone calls constantly saying, you know, we cannot afford for the Lido to close. And I know you've very kindly said, you know, you're going to stop taking payments, but please carry on taking my monthly payments because we want you to survive. You know, you've done an amazing thing in Reading already. It's only been three years. I come here five days a week. It's my...

Various reasons people come here. Some social, a lot of health. know, when we talk, especially post COVID, we talk about kind of mental anxiety and depression and so forth. So outdoor exercise, I know it's been well proven on the medical benefits. But yeah, genuinely, I was, and I said to my wife, because I have always thought about our venues as being, you know, it's a commercial business. We have investors.

We hope to pay all our investors back at some point and hopefully they might get some dividends in the future. But it dawned on me that for our members and for people who use us regularly, it's more than that. It's actually a real haven for them and it's a place that for a lot of people, if we suddenly disappeared, it would leave a real hole in their lives. It really shines a light, I think,

what you're doing, must make you see in different perspective, this isn't just a job or a business, this has actually got real meaning for some people as part of the community, you're integrated now into Reddit. So yeah, that must hit home. I mean, clearly based on what you've just said, you do know your audience very well, which for marketing is the core of marketing. So what have you found as well? Where do you, I know I said before we came in, now we discussed this a little bit, where do you find works best for marketing for you? Well, first of all, referrals.

Maria Lloyd (29:54.08)
It's where we attract people initially because it's unique. It's got the great heritage. But also because hopefully most people, I know we drop the ball sometimes, everyone in the service industry does sometimes. Most people walk away from here being wowed. I hear it not only by email, but face to face every day. Wow, this place is amazing. So unique. Love the swimming pool.

The massages are one of the decisions we made when we opened Bristol Lido, because I used to work for a big hotel spa that we did beauty treatments and I think we had 55 different treatments on our books. And straight away when I met Arnie in Bristol I said, look, for the spa let's do massage only. Because even though I was at one of the best European hotel spas in Europe, I voted by Condé Nast.

I was getting complaints week in week out about people having massages and saying, it was like being stroked with a feather. There was no tension. was no real connection with the therapist. I pointed out I had certain ailments and they just ignored it and so on. And the reason for that was most of the staff that worked for me were beauty therapists and they actually preferred doing exfoliations, nails and...

facials and so on which, as some would say, bit less strenuous and easier on the joints. Where if we only offer massage, we only employ massage therapists, the people who have genuinely gone into this industry because they love holistic massage, they love looking after people and they're experts in what they do. So that was really important.

the reason we've stuck with Massage here. Yeah, that's really interesting. So what are the biggest lessons that you've learned since opening Thames Leader? Like you said, there was a chance it was going to be different from Bristol. So have you diverse in any way? Is it different in any way? We are slightly bigger here. We've got an events room, which we don't have in Bristol. But I think there is a lot more business.

Maria Lloyd (32:21.454)
in Reading, it's a much more corporate scene here. Memberships, people using the the swimming pool, it's virtually the same. are very lucky. We have 1100 memberships available. full. We have about a waiting list of nearly 500 people here. In Bristol, just after lockdown, had actually 1100 members, but we had 1600 people on the waiting list. And we actually closed the waiting list because there's no point in adding it. So

What's the same is that the people who join and use us regularly and also it's such diverse crowd, know, from nurses, from teachers, from students to GPs, surgeons, lawyers. So it's, you know, we're not exclusive to a certain demographic. It's, you know, we do attract a bit. I think it's the beauty of

When we first opened actually, after about three months, one of the members came up to me and said, Mark, this place is amazing, it really is. Everything you do is so good. It's missing one thing. I said, all right, okay, I'm happy to listen. What are we missing? A gym. I said, absolutely not. we stick, and 30 years ago, I was a personal trainer and I worked in gyms, so I know all about that industry. I said, no, the gym would ruin it. All that ego, all that...

walking around strutting your stuff and the vanity that goes with it. No, the Lido is about taking time out and for everybody to feel comfortable. know, we don't judge. I don't know if you've seen the branding for all of our spa products, our shower gels and so on. No, not the spa products. Okay, I'll show you later on. One of our members in Bristol about 10 years ago, she was sat in the bar doing some drawings and she was doing

just drawings and characters of our guests, but being very honest with it. So they were pencil drawings and outlines of people who were using the facilities in their swimming trunks, in their bathing costumes. But they were honest picture drawings of normal shapes. So they weren't body beautiful, they weren't six packs, weren't, you know, they were natural curves, ones that most of us kind of have to embrace on a daily basis.

Maria Lloyd (34:48.03)
And it's much more friendly that image. Yeah, and it's accessible. It's about, you don't have to, you don't have to wear a Prada swimming costume to come here. You don't have to have a certain body shape. And, you know, a lot of people when they exercise, even in the fitness industry, people don't go to the gym to start off with because they feel as if they're not going to be too overweight. They're not healthy enough. They're not fit enough. a lot of people, and this goes back to

when I worked as a fitness instructor 30 years ago, is that people are put off by going to places to exercise because of potentially the stigma they would have because they don't wear the right kit, because they don't feel part of the crowd. Well for the leaders, it's always been about accessibility. It doesn't matter what you wear, doesn't matter. But I think the swimming community is like that. Definitely outdoor swimmers and stuff like that. You'd be amazed if you look at some of the people who are transatlantic.

or swim across the channel, they're often slightly larger people. And I think that is part of the swimming community, which is lovely. We don't judge. One of the funny things, there was a program on TV the other night about Sweden. And was a paddy McGuinness and Chris, his name from Top Gear. they went to Sweden and they went into a sauna, a local community sauna.

and there was all these old boys in their 60s and 70s who were sat on the benches of the sauna, completely naked. And obviously Chris and Paddy McGuinness, they wore their shorts, typical English modesty. But it was interesting, one of the things that one of the Swedish men said, he said, when we sit here and we all sit here naked and we have no clothes on, we're all at the same level. And we can all, and there is something about,

Obviously we don't do naked bathing here because we don't have a very niche. It has been requested to be honest, we need a volume of people here. be a very niche crowd. But even sitting in a sauna here or sitting in the hot tub just with your swimming costume on, it breaks down barriers. You can go to Reading now. If you walk into Reading and stand at a bus stop, awfully clothed, with your coat on, with your bag.

Maria Lloyd (37:11.872)
and there's 20 people in that bus stop, you'll probably find most of us don't talk to the people next to us. We actually avoid eye contact. You come here, you strip down to your swimming costume and you sit next to total strangers, literally within centimeters of each other in a sauna, steam room or the hot tub. You're the best of friends. It's so strange, it?

So are there any lessons from reading that you've learnt specifically or have in the last few years with it? Not really. mean, we listened to feedback and we don't try and push things. We're a private company. There's only four of us on the board of directors and I'm on site here twice a week. I'm on site in Bristol twice a week and we've never dictated the vision and the path. We've kind of

We're lucky in the sense that we can test things out and if they don't work, we just say, well, never mind, we'll move on to the next thing. Yeah, that's Swedish approach. It is, yeah. Well, the Swedish approach, there's a word called lagom by which the Swedish... I've not heard that one. You know, hugge, which is the Danish one about this joy of relaxed living. I can't remember the exact interpretation. But lagom is the Finnish and the Swedish one, which translate into enough and...

What it means is that be satisfied with enough in life. Don't be greedy. You know, it's really important. If we keep striving, we keep being greedy, it's not going to make you any happier. Find that perfect balance. Arnie always jokes with me then because apparently the Finnish version of lagom and hukka is dancing, drunken dancing in your underpants. And that's the Finnish apparently. I'm not sure where that comes from, but...

Apparently that's the thing. But no, we learn every day. We have our own challenges here. Our biggest challenge is, in fact, we have a car park here. We've got 29 spaces in this car park. In Bristol, we don't have a car park. Because we don't have a car park in Bristol, we don't have an issue because people know that they have to make their own way there and hopefully use public transport.

Maria Lloyd (39:32.686)
Because we offer a car park but we can only offer it to 29 cars, it's a real issue for us. we currently got planning permission to try and get more spaces from the council. hopefully that will resolve itself. One of the real positives, which I must mention, and it goes back to the River Thames. About five years ago, we were approached by a local community project.

who were building two hydro turbines on the River Thames. So literally, on the other side, adjacent to where we're sat now, on the other side of the river, they built these two massive hydro turbines generating electricity from the river. And they were looking for one main customer and they knocked on our door and said, Thames leader, would you like to buy electricity from us instead of from the main electricity companies? And obviously, the rate that they were charging was a lot less than the electricity companies. so, yeah, so.

We're sat here now and the electricity we're using for this recording and the lights and everything, this has all been generated by the river Thames. That's amazing. I did not know that. commercially, it's amazing. This happened before Ukraine. So you can imagine how smug we were when suddenly all the energy prices shot up when Ukraine happened that we had this relationship. Although it's not foolproof. If we have a drought like we did the first summer.

and we have the hydro and the river levels are too low, it doesn't generate electricity. And if the river levels are too high and we have lots of storms, it doesn't generate electricity. but overall- They've been quite high recently. Is that effective? Yeah, we're okay at the moment. okay, good. But I love that link. I'm a bit to shame that kind of local press haven't cottoned onto that a little bit more, because I think it's such a lovely story down to heritage building.

that used to use the River Thames as part of its attraction is now being supported by the River Thames and obviously we're trying what we can to be sustainable. Yeah, it's still connected to the Thames. I think we're going to have to get that out. Without the fish and the frogs in the swimming pool and the...

Maria Lloyd (41:46.354)
the weed. I think your weightiness would not be so high. I'm glad you mentioned the River Thames because I actually thought you were... I read something about solar panels at one point you were looking into solar panels. Yeah we've got planning application and which has been approved. So we have... so on the east side and on the south facing exterior roofs we have solar panels coming in so they will

So they are not generating electricity, they're the evacuated tubes, so they heat water. So that is going to help heat the swimming pool and the hot tub. So although I was talking about our electricity comes from the River Thames, the pool and the hot tub heating system is actually gas, which, you know, it isn't ideal. But hopefully the installation, the solar panels will help generate the heat, which will...

bring down our carbon footprint as such. So yeah, no, we're really pleased. Planning went in, it's been approved and then hopefully, maybe by spring next year, they'll be installed. That's wonderful. Do you have any other plans for Thames Lido going forwards then, apart from obviously being more sustainable, which is wonderful? Yeah, well, the sustainability also, just to let you know, we try and encourage, so this is the Scandinavian side of us, about

13, 14 years ago in Bristol, Lido, in the spa, we were using a product range called ELA from the Cotswolds. And it was a very nice, luxurious, organic product. But I quickly realized that all the food that comes out the kitchen is made on site. And it was our own recipe. So everything people were ordering and eating in the restaurant, it was our own bread, our own yogurt, our own ice cream.

everything was made from scratch. And if we had to buy it in, we didn't serve it. And I wanted to, I felt a bit of an imposter in the spa because we are one business that we were actually using other people's products. So I managed to find this wonderful apothecaryist called Richard, who developed the brand for Babington House. And you might have heard of the brand called Cow Shed. Yes. So it's, mean, it's worldwide now.

Maria Lloyd (44:13.592)
But he used to do, I think he was like the, he used to help in the gardens and the herb garden at Babington House 30 odd years ago. And he started creating out of organic, you know, the herbs and the fruits and so on. He used to do all the pulses for the massage therapist. But he now makes organic natural products for spas. So anything from chow gels to oils and so on.

Anyway, I managed to get in touch with him and I said, we're doing. I said, look, we'd love to have our own, our own recipes for all of our products, like the kitchen. And he initially said, well, look, Mark, I'm really sorry, but I'm inundated with work. There's no way I can take on another client. I said, well, that's a real shame, Richard. Anyway, if you're ever in Bristol, you know, pop in and come and say hello. Cause I think you're quite like, like what we're doing. And he actually did a couple of months later turned up.

And we got on really well and I gave him the tour and gave him all the history, which I love. I love talking about the leader and what's original and all the wonderful stories about the individual side. I spent a couple of hours with him and he looked at me at the end and he kind of shook his head. He said, you're a bugger, aren't you? I said, what? said, you knew, you knew if you showed me around and you got me here that I could not say no to you. And that was the start of our relationship. So in our,

massage rooms, in our showers here, all the products are our own recipes. There's two shower gels, one of them is a pre-swim and one of them is a post-swim shower gel. And the whole idea was, Arnie and I from day one, we did some research. We want to reduce our chemical usage and chlorine in swimming pools and hot tubs, it's bleach, it's not a very nice substance. So we wanted to reduce the amount of chlorine in pools.

as we all know, our local indoor swimming pools especially, it really stinks and is not very pleasant. And the research we did, yes you can get ozone treatment and so on, but you always need a little bit of bleach or chlorine in the pool as well as these other disinfectants. So we have got ultraviolet light disinfection here, but you still need chlorine.

Maria Lloyd (46:41.484)
What we found out was that the best way to reduce your chlorine levels was to get people to wash. Because that's it. It's the bacteria that we have on our skins, on our bodies, that we then go into the swimming pools, especially in this country. So I said to Richard, we have this what we call a wash naked policy, which is a bit shocking for some people. said, you've probably seen we don't have a communal change room. We've got individual shower cubicles.

And there's two reasons for that. One is with a grade two listed building and a limited space, it was hard to get communal change rooms. But also we felt that why don't we give people their own private shower room to get changed and washed in. And hopefully that will encourage people to actually wash before they get into swimming pool. I was talking to Richard about this. said, it's amazing how I tell people till I'm blue in the face about this, policy. And I remember once in Bristol, there was a group of three ladies and

I was walking them around and explaining about this wash naked policy and this lady, that's wonderful. I wish my swimming pool would do that. I said, well, maybe you can talk to them and encourage them to do the same thing. And I thought it was a really positive conversation. And I thought these three ladies are going to be washed and showered before they go into the pool. And I saw them two minutes later jumping in the pool, dry as a bone. They hadn't washed at all. And it's like, it's like.

She was a real advocate for this, she obviously feels that her body is very, very clean. And it's not just about the bacteria, it's about the deodorant, the moisturizers and everything else. it's not just the dead skin cells and the rest of it, which I won't go into detail because it'll put people off their lunch. But anyway, so I spoke to Richard about this and I said, how can we really encourage people?

And then we came up with this concept and said, well, why don't we provide them with really nice, luxurious shower gels and tell them that one of them is pre-swim. So it's cypress, lime and grapefruit is the main two ingredients, which are very cleansing, antibacterial and so on. And then the post-swim shower gel is what we call tums and bits, is a bit of a play on word, is rose geranium based and rose geranium is very moisturizing.

Maria Lloyd (49:03.264)
One is very cleansing before you go in, the other one is really moisturizing that will re-moisturize your skin. So when you go in. So again, that is our little effort to try and reduce the amount of chemicals we use in a slightly indirect fashion. I really love that because again, this goes back to human psychology.

Instead of saying you need to shower, you think what would make them shower? What's the carrot? What would make them show up? So he said, in order for someone to do, if you tell someone to do something, they're more likely to not do it. Yeah. To be honest. I think- it's your mother telling you. yeah, definitely. So I think how you've gone about that is very clever. So thank you for that. Are there any highlights or anything that you'd like to leave people?

highlights. Any key points you want people to take away apart from shower before you go into a swimming pool? Every day is different at the Lido. I think an outdoor swimming pool and I'm sure you'll talk to members who've been swimming here for seven years, they will tell you that every time they come here it's slightly different because there's no roof. So whatever the weather's doing creates a totally different atmosphere whether it's a different temperature, a different breeze.

whether the cloud cover, how sunny it is, the shadows. It's a very, very unique experience, everything that you come here. And I think that's very important. I suppose one of the messages that we've always, you we were talking earlier on about marketing and how do people, how do you get your message across and how, one of the hurdles we've always had of both leaders is because we have the membership for the Swim Pool, a lot of people think you have to be a member to come to the leader, but you don't. So the membership is purely their,

those people want to swim on a regular daily basis. You can access the facilities in lots of other ways, different packages, the restaurant and the bar is always open to the general public. so anyone could come in. And also, we're normal people. We're not a five star hotel with all the the the bell and whistles and the etiquette and so on. We're pretty down to earth and very welcoming.

Maria Lloyd (51:15.438)
And I think sometimes people also think it might be a bit posh for me. We're far from posh, but we are very warm and welcoming. Well, I think that's the association. The fact that you haven't said the word spa, it's Thames Lido. It's not spa. As soon as you say the word spa or anything like that, you get that association. So I think you've done very well on your branding and everything. So, Mark, this has been a real pleasure. Thoroughly enjoyed talking to you. This is clearly a very slick, well, what's the word I'm looking for? Well,

Research, well OIL's machine, yes, you've clearly got it down and you know your audience very well which is amazing. Well, I think I said earlier on, we're not perfect, we do drop the ball, I mean we employ about 80 people here and we're lucky we have amazing staff retention, think people really enjoy working here, there's amazing benefits to working for us including using facilities and if you think that we have a waiting list and if you start working here you can actually use the facilities for free which is wonderful.

But yeah, it is the service industry and we try really hard to employ the right people and make sure that we engage with our customers in the right way. And 99.9 % of the time, think most people walk out the door going, hmm, I'll be back. I bet they do. So Mark, thank you so much, you're time, I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you.